Lindy’s Sports, Athlon Sports and Phil Steele recently released their 2024 college football preview magazines. With that, they revealed their respective Preseason All-American teams, and Notre Dame was represented well.
Five Irish players — graduate student defensive tackle Howard Cross III, graduate student safety Xavier Watts, graduate student kickoff returner Jayden Harrison, junior cornerback Benjamin Morrison and senior tight end Mitchell Evans — were selected by at least one of the three outlets.
Notre Dame players on Lindy’s, Athlon and Phil Steele’s Preseason All-American Teams
Blue & Gold says…
First of all, Phil Steele must have just forgotten about Morrison. The outlet slotted him at No. 3 among draft-eligible cornerbacks, and it has four All-American teams. We’ll chalk that one up to “everyone makes mistakes” and assume he would have been on the second team if Phil Steele had caught the error.
Second, Lindy’s did not include return specialists on its All-American teams. If it had, one would think Harrison would have been on there.
Both Lindy’s and Athlon put Morrison behind Michigan’s Will Johnson and Colorado’s Travis Hunter. Did Hunter get a bump up because he’s also an effective wide receiver? It’s hard to say, but he’s certainly earned his reputation as a cornerback. Johnson’s resume speaks for itself, and his masterpiece was the national championship game against Washington. He allowed only 2 receptions for 11 yards on 5 targets against the Huskies’ high-powered attack.
Bottom line: Morrison falling short of first-team preseason All-American status has more to do with 2024 being a strong year at the cornerback position than it does with his play.
No disagreement from Blue & Gold on Cross, Watts or Evans. All are among the best at what they do. Evans’ sample size of production is small, but his peak was so spectacular that he caught national attention (and, for what it’s worth, his peak happened to be a stretch of prime-time games).
Harrison, who made his name at Marshall before transferring to Notre Dame this offseason, is a bona fide weapon as a kickoff returner. The kickoff return game doesn’t have as much value as it used to, but all it takes is one big break at the right time for Harrison to etch his name in Fighting Irish history.
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